Gadgets for Bobbles

For all its show of energy, television is still in far from perfect health. Its images are often spotty, blurred or barred with interference. Many owners have found that their sets cannot pick up all, or even most, of the stations in their area. Airplanes overhead cause the pictures to squirm, fade or whirl. Most screens, too small for comfortable viewing, bring on headaches.

To combat these ailments, a number of costly pink pills have appeared in radio shops. Last week set owners could spend hundreds of dollars for extra equipment.

Magnifying lenses, the commonest cureall, are supposed to make the pictures bigger and relieve eyestrain. They come in either blue or clear plastic, according to the buyer's fancy, and are filled with mineral oil./- They range in price from Magnaview's enlarging economy size ($19.95) to RCA's $36.95 model. For the really deluxe trade, Cortley's rubber-tired, rolling receiver ($1,995) will project an image of any desired size, from a few inches to 6 ft. by 8 ft.

Most of the magnifiers have one big flaw: anyone looking from more than 30DEG off center gets a distorted picture that is worse than a tiny one.

For headaches or that dull, logy feeling, a Polaroid filter ($6.50 to $16, according to screen size) is recommended. It changes the flickering, grey & white image to a flickering, black & white image, by cutting down glare in a lighted room. It may also cut down vision (like sunglasses, it shuts out too much light).

If a set is too tired to receive a weak signal,* a radio frequency-amplifying booster ($19.75) may help. It usually works well in overcoming wire lathing in the walls, or other signal-repelling obstructions. A similar gadget: the wave trap ($6), which eliminates the heavy, horizontal lines sometimes radiated by neighboring television receivers.

For such external irritations as landlords and rental agents who object to antennae cluttering up their roofs: the Visibeam, a portable indoor antenna. This Lucite gadget costs $16.95, looks like a futuristic table lamp. According to the manufacturer, it also clears up "ghosts" and reflections on the screen, because it can be moved around the room to just the right spot for proper reception.

/- Water distorts the image. Solid, optically ground glass is too heavy and too costly. Mineral oil is perfectly transparent, fills the holes in the plastic.

*In 1939, when television was still experimental, Arthur Knox Sr., a deaf Manhattan lawyer, encountered an unusual problem when he moved to new offices on the 42nd floor of the Chanin Building and began to hear eerie music and voices in his hearing aid. Engineers prescribed a fine wire mesh to shut out the NBC television transmitter on the nearby Empire State Building, but Mr. Knox rather enjoyed the programs, kept listening in until they finally faded out, five years later.

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